Tuesday, 9 November 2010

Crags 2: facts and figures

HistoryTen years ago the Southside Community Association raised £200,000 for the construction of the Crags Sports Centre. They worked in partnership with sportscotland (who contributed £500,000) and Edinburgh Council (who also put up £500,000).

The Centre was run by The Community Association until they found themselves in financial difficulty in 2005 when they were bailed out by Edinburgh Council and Edinburgh Leisure. A bail out of £95,000 was provided and, while the Council retained ownership, Edinburgh Leisure took over the running of the premises. Edinburgh Council continued to subsidise Edinburgh Leisure to run the premises.

Finance The figures for 2009/10 show that to make The Crags viable it required a net subsidy of £112,000 - or a subsidy of £2.94 per user. This is an improvement on the figures for 2006/7 when the subsidy was £120,000 and the subsidy per user was £3.99.

In short, The Crags has never been a viable concern and, although Edinburgh Leisure has reduced the level of subsidy they have never regarded it as capable of having a business plan which could be viable.